Besides asking what the heck I was doing watching Naruto in the first place, I wondered why things get brittle as they age? Is it size? Ego? Sedentaryness? For inanimate objects, it feels like they just dry up - grapes to raisins, plums to prunes, etc. - not a happy thing. I imagine a person's "water content" also diminishes over time... -- Oops - sorry about that - I felt oddly compelled to get a drink of water just then.
So why does it feel like the older (and larger) an organization gets, the more it "retains water"?? When organizations decay, they don't shrink and dry up, they ...congeal. Besides the "yuk" & "eeew -- gross" factor, this pendulous, ineffectual, slug-like behavior could have some dramatic effects on the world around them:
I'm not an actuarial scientist, I didn't eat Wheaties for breakfast or sleep at a Holiday Inn Express, despite this even I can deduce that:
The numbers:
Besides thinking it's time to go long on companies that sell video-conferencing technology, I'm wondering if this is just organizational decay? That as the DOT or FAA have grown older, they've just lost the ability to think clearly, forecast correctly, elevate issues appropriately, etc.? I'm sure there are many employees there who have been shouting about the impending resource gap, but maybe "management" just ignored it?
I think of the company I work for - it's now over 30 years old - and certainly some elements of it feel very sluggish. I think of the company that insures my apartment, that still today (after four years of assuring me that this was in the works) do not have a way for me to look at my policy or pay my bill online. I look at how long it took for America (a self-proclaimed super-power) to react to Katrina, or recognize that it's roads and highways are falling apart, there are so many examples.
What to do? How do organizations stay fresh? Here's one idea.
I heard this great quote on a TV show called Naruto: "anything that has form must one day decay."
Apparently, 7,100 (or 47%) of the 15,000 air traffic controllers in the US will hit their mandatory retirement age in 2012. I don't know about you, but this doesn't make me sit back, relax and enjoy the flight!
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